In this blogpost I am going to expound on how Search Engine Optimization works. But first, it is important to understand how search engines work from a human perspective. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out my blog post “How We Use Search Engines“!
Google is looking for how your website, and your content, interacts and engages with all the other content that is Online. They are also looking for how relevant, and important your content addresses and answers somebody’s query.
You need to take your website, and your content, and everything else that you’re doing Online, and map it out so that it flows together and makes sense.
When Google comes to your Online presence you want it to look like a server room where all the wires are straight, and plugged in exactly where they need to be going; from point A to point B to point C.
When we engage with a website, we see graphics. We see titles, buttons. And information. We see someone’s message, and their solution.
However, In order to understand how Google approaches search engine rankings, we need to be able to see as Google sees.
Let’s look at what Google sees.
All Google can see is lines of code. It is very important that those lines of code are structured in such a way that Google can read it easily, and determine in an instant what each page is about, and what the content on that page is about, and how likely this page will answer the query that somebody is asking in the search engine.
Indexing and Relevancy
Google uses what we call “Google spiders” to crawl the web, and map out the content that these spiders find multiple times a day. The spiders are mapping out the URL’s of a website, and its site map, and noticing if anything has changed. They store this information, and put it all in a proper place so that it’s very easy and fast for Google to come back, and tell whether this site matches the query that’s being asked, in the search engine.
- Indexing
Another thing these spiders do is what we call“indexing”. They go through all the content, the title tags, and the alternate attributes, and “index” those things into the Google index so that when a search query is typed into Google in an instant, a moment’s notice, Google can go to their index, and pull the content out and put it as an answer to that query in the search results page. The indexing and the crawling that the spiders do, determines the results that Google is going to show to the query that is being asked in the search engine.
- Relevancy
That used to be all that Google did to determine rankings, but now Google is looking at relevancy and social signals as well. Google looks at how relevant your website is, to the searcher’s question.Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors. There is a huge, massive piece of software that Google uses to determine relevancy. There’s no possible way that I could go into those details in this chapter. For one thing I do not know what all of those 200 factors are. In fact, I don’t think there’s anybody on the planet that knows every aspect of Google’s algorithm, or Google’s piece of software that determines relevancy. It takes many, many programmers and coders working together on this software to keep it up and running and determining who’s site is most relevant to answer this query.What I really want you to notice are these two words, Relevance and Importance. Google is asking basically these two questions. “Does this page address the query?” and “Is this page popular?”With the rise of the social media craze, and the liking, sharing, commenting, and reviews that are taking place in the social-sphere, Google is using that data to help determine how popular a page is.It didn’t used to be that way. Google’s search engine used to be strictly based on content and links, and it has changed now to include popularity, which is determined by how social a web page is. That is why it is important to incorporate social media into your search engine optimizing strategy.
Website Architecture
The last thing I want to touch on in this section is website architecture.
The more you can do to create a website that flows properly, and is built and structured properly, the better it will be for Google. You want to map out the hierarchy, and the architecture of your website in such a way that Google knows what this entire website is about. We want to create websites that are structured well so that Google can find it’s way through the website, and index it properly for search.
The very best way to do this, is to create your website for a perfect human experience. Google’s desire is to send their searchers to websites that truly meet their searcher’s needs. So, if you structure your website architecture for optimal user experience, then you are beginning to position your website for optimal Google standards as well.
SEO Steps To Success.
In the next blogpost I’ll get into more detail and talk about on site optimizing, local directories, Google Plus Local, reviews, fresh content, video, and more.
This blogpost is an excerpt from our latest book Digital Marketing Secrets for Small Business. It tells about the latest in digital marketing and what you need to know to grow your business.
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